The Toronto Police Association wants the Ontario Federation of Labour to bite its tongue after releasing a statement about the fatal shooting of Sammy Yatim.

On Wednesday, the OFL issued a press release calling the police shooting of the 18-year-old “a total failure of the Toronto policing system” and requesting “an independent investigation and a total overhaul of police training and response to mental illness.”

TPA president Mike McCormack barked back Thursday with a statement of his own, calling the OFL’s release “uninformed and irresponsible.” He chastised OFL president Sid Ryan for “passing judgment” on the incident despite having “no expertise in policing.”

McCormack also criticized Ryan for suggesting — without any evidence — that Yatim was mentally ill, and demanded he withdraw the release and apologize “to the Yatim family, the policing community and the public at large.”

In an interview, the police union head said, “Imagine if you’re the family reading this and they’re suggesting your son had mental health issues. Who are they to be saying that?”

Ryan rebutted by arguing the OFL didn’t explicitly say Yatim was mentally ill. “What I did say is the kid was clearly under stress,” he said.

He argued police failed to follow recommendations made in a 2002 report by the Urban Alliance on Race Relations entitled “Saving Lives: Alternatives to the Use of Lethal Force by Police.” One such recommendation was the deployment of a mobile crisis intervention unit — in which an officer is paired with a mental health nurse—when police receive calls about people who appear mentally unstable.

“Toronto Police Services signed onto those recommendations, which clearly would have helped in this situation,” said Ryan.

In response to Ryan’s call for an investigation, McCormack wondered, sarcastically, if the OFL president was “aware the SIU — an independent organization that looks into policing matters — has been around for almost 20 years.”

But Ryan said that while “the SIU will simply look at a police officer who discharged his weapon,” he is calling for “a much broader investigation” of the entire Toronto Police Services system to determine why “numerous people end up being shot dead when they’ve clearly got some mental disorders.”

“I’m surprised McCormick wouldn’t want this for his front-line officers,” said Ryan. “Shame on him for hiding behind the SIU when he should be doing his job and calling for these kinds of investigations.”